Court Rejects 'AI Could Have Made It' Copyright Defence

A blogger got caught using a photographer's image without a licence, then tried to argue it didn't matter because the same image could have been generated synthetically. A U.S. District Court dismissed the defence outright. This matters because it's the first time that specific argument has been put to a judge and lost. If that defence had stuck, it would have handed infringers a get-out clause for practically any photo. Now there's a ruling on the books that your original work doesn't lose copyright protection just because a generative tool could theoretically produce something similar. Screenshot this one and send it to your clients who think unlicensed image use is a grey area.